Simulating stellar evolution, Lake Vostok, Stellar images

[Nostromics Newsletter]

Nostromics Newsletter

Nostromics science gifts product news, educational resources & science tidbits

Nostromics Newsletter, 27 April 2011 - You are welcome to share this mail, see newsletter back issues

Like the Nostromics page on Facebook, follow @Nostromics on Twitter

Simulating stellar evolution with Star in a Box

Have you ever wondered what happens during the life of a star? Learn it with Star in a Box, an online stellar evolution simulator.

Click the Star in a Box main screen to start. If you click the "Animate" button and select an evolution speed, the main pane shows by default the path of a star similar to the Sun along the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram, an astrophysics chart plotting the brightness of stars versus temperature. While the simulation is running, the right pane displays key star properties, such as size and temperature, compared to the Sun. Select the stellar properties you are interested in, like size or brightness, by clicking the corresponding icons at the top of the right pane.

The "Starting Values" button at the bottom lets you change the simulated star's mass (mass = 1 is the Sun) and evolutionary stage. An elapsed time readout appears at the bottom right. See how fast the early and late stages of stellar evolution are.

Lake Vostok in Antarctica

Lake Vostok is a huge underground lake in Antarctica similar in size to Canadian Lake Ontario. It is roughly 250 km long by 50 km wide and is about 4,000 m below the Antarctic ice sheet. Lake Vostok, which contains fresh water, is at most roughly 400 m deep. Its environment may have been isolated for the past 15 to 25 million years, so life may have evolved in different and interesting ways. Drilling the ice to reach the lake and take samples is technologically possible, but scientists are still figuring how to get there without contaminating its unique ecosystem.

The Shackleton Advertisement Mousepad, and related Antarctica gifts in the Exploration section of Nostromics Store, is inspired by great Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton. The design features the text of the possibly apocryphal 1901 newspaper ad with which he supposedly recruited men for his 1907 expedition: "MEN WANTED for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success." More science gifts and products at Nostromics Store.

Telescopic stellar images

If you use a big telescope to observe stars in the hope of viewing recognizable disks with surface details, you will be disappointed. Stars look pointlike through a telescope. Actually, the larger the telescope, the smaller a stellar image looks.

Stars are too far for most telescopes to be able to show their actual disks. What we see of stars is a pattern of concentric rings created by the way light interacts with the telescope optics. The larger the telescope, the smaller this pattern. It takes huge telescopes and advanced techniques to barely show the disks of a few large stars like Betelgeuse, with some surface details.

-- Paolo Amoroso & Mauro Arpino (Nostromics), science educators - Milan, Italy

Comments? Contact us.

Do you like Nostromics Newsletter? Forward it to friends who might be interested.

Copyright (C) 2011 by Paolo Amoroso and Mauro Arpino